Re: Request for GR: clarifying the license text licensing / freeness issue

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> I disagree with this position.  See Fabian Fagerholm's explanation.
> For a strong copyleft licence like the GPL it's particularly
> troublesome if people go around making minor edits: all of that code
> is licence-incompatible with all unedited-GPL code.  So the FSF have
> worked to prevent that by using the copyright on their licence text
> and I don't think that's unreasonable.

I can see that preventing license proliferation (especially
closely-similar but incompatible licenses) is a motivation for
discouraging changes to the license text.

> The status quo is quite fine and should be left as it is.

This doesn't address the concern that motivated this discussion: that
the license texts which have restrictions on modification are non-free
works by the DFSG, yet are being distributed in Debian against the
Social Contract.

-- 
 \       "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything |
  `\             that's even remotely true!"  -- Homer, _The Simpsons_ |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney